Grumpy Veterinarian's Second Chances (Small Town Grumpy Sunshine #7)

He undresses me by firelight like I’m a gift he was afraid to want.

I spent a marriage being looked at and found wanting.

Dr. Jamie Peterson looks at me like I’m found.

I drove into Pinewood Ridge on a blown tire, my son asleep in back.

We hit a stray dog in the storm, and the grumpiest, biggest man in town waded into the dark for it before he even looked at me.

Six-foot-something of quiet and scars, a vet who buries every soft thing under a stethoscope.

He tells me not to make it a thing.

I plant my feet in his clinic and don’t leave.

He gives my son a dog with our address on its tag. It’s the only way he knows how to say stay.

Then he takes his time with me by the fire, learning the whole map of me by heart.

But wait.

My ex-husband’s lawyer finds the mountain town I crossed a state line to disappear into.

He’s calling it visitation. It isn’t.

The way Jamie says my name like it was startled out of him…

The way he built a whole life in the space he swore would stay empty…

I finally found a man who looks at me and doesn’t flinch.

Now I have to fight to keep him and my son from the man who taught me to expect none of it.